Month: Sep 2019

England v Australia – 4th Test 5th Day – With A Slack Jaw, And Not Much To Say

LordCanisLupus18 Comments

I am starting the report of the day with England just having lost Jack Leach, and the start of the last hour. The NFL season starts today (although my team are going to do well to win 2 games) and there is plenty else going on. But England have fought, and fought hard today, in direct contrast to their performance at Edgbaston, for example. It has been gritty and doughty, and everything that the first test wasn’t.

Starting this paragraph and there are 14 overs remaining. England started the day with two down, and while Roy, in particular, did not look to be suggesting permanence, as Chris put on the Twitter feed, Joe Denly, for all his faults, sold his wicket dearly. Jason Roy stuck at it, got to 30, then got undone by another beautiful ball by Pat Cummins. I thought last night, that if Roy got out to a similar ball to the one that got Root, would there be such understanding. Answer was, of course not. Of course there are differing circumstances, differing careers, and yes, differing agenda, but Root can be excused for losing his wicket three times for a duck this series.

And as I write, Overton has been given out LBW to Hazlewood. He’s reviewed it, but it looks out. There’s a pause for ball tracking, and it’s three reds. It’s all over.

There went the Ashes. Australia retain the Ashes. They’ve won by 185 runs.

Let’s run through the rest of the play. Stokes nicked behind, didn’t wait for the decision and walked. A review would have given him out, but there’s no guarantee Australia would have called for it! Not with their form. But well done Stokes for not hanging around.

Denly went soon after lunch, Bairstow hung around a while before being nailed LBW. Buttler and Overton then dug in, with Jos batting over 100 balls. England just seemed to be two wickets too many down at any time, and although the Somerset boys worked really hard, Jos leaving a straight one wasn’t in the script. Jofra didn’t last long, falling LBW to Lyon and things looked truly hopeless.

Enter Jack Leach. Again Somerset stood between England and losing the Ashes. Again there was resistance, but just too many overs to face. Paine rotated the bowling, brought on the leg spin of Marnus, and he got one to bounce a little more to Leach, who gloved it to short leg. A couple of overs later, Overton was pegged LBW, and it was all over. Just under 14 overs from saving the game. They fought hard, but that’s the minimum expected. This is an Ashes series, if not lost, has seen Australia retain the urn.

Warne babbled some old nonsense at the end that these were two evenly matched teams, but that is patent nonsense. Australia are a much better team than England. Their world class, historically so, number 4 has been the massive difference. Stokes has played well, and Burns has done the best of a bad sextet of openers, and Archer has some promise (no doubt) but the Australian bowling is good, has good replacements, and the rest of the batting (Labuschagne being a real find in these conditions) has done enough. England missed their chance by not cashing in at Edgbaston when they had the Aussies where they wanted them after two days. England missed a chance due to weather at Lord’s, but that was sort of known a long way out. England took a chance, with a little luck, at Headingley, but as I posed at the start of this match would we have momentum from a miracle win, or would relying on a miracle really be a fools errand. The latter applies.

What’s the point in being angry? The collective media didn’t give a toss when we lost 4-0 Down Under in 2017/18. They were more pleased that their hero batted out a boring test match to prevent a whitewash, and just said it was utterly inevitable that we would lose – no biggie. Then this Ashes were a lower priority than winning the World Cup. While Australians would throw their hands up at this either/or attitude, this is seen as perfectly acceptable for England fans. Now there’s been a bit more chippiness from media sorts, but what did they expect? This is a madman’s idea of a batting order, which he’s stubbornly refused to change the personnel. George Dobell called him Ed Myth. He’s going to face some attention.

Then there is Bayliss, who is off in very short order. His test management has not been one to savour. We await his replacement, who I presume is going to be in place before the New Zealand tour next month. Heaven only knows who is going to take his place.

Root’s captaincy should be up for scrutiny. He’s not the batsman we once knew, as his average is well below 50 now. He’s not impressed, but one wonders how else he could captain this exercise in stupidity imposed on him by a selector in love with himself. I presume the next skipper is Stokes, and I’m not sure that’s a great idea either.

We can take a look at the rest of the team in the days ahead. But in a summer where England won a World Cup and then went straight into an Ashes series, and then face 8 test matches before the end of the winter, including two against New Zealand, with the first on 20 November (we have a ton of T20s before that), before rolling in to a four test series in South Africa, there’s no rest. I watched The Edge last night (it’s included with Prime) and the focus in the second part of the film is of the breakdown of the team. It was clear burnout. The Jonathan Trott retirement piece was tough watching. It showed how much it took to get to the top, and how the toll is immense. (I hope Vaughan saw that part).

The hierarchy in this country give not one shit about this. It’s why we have the Ashes back-to-back like 2013-14. It’s why we have the Ashes straight after the World Cup. It’s why we have a brand new competition that the top players are going to need to promote. It’s why the test schedule is ridiculous, and yet the format has been neglected. It’s why the County Championship is marginalised to the cold ends of the season. It’s why Tom Harrison is still in his position despite alienating core support and angering pretty much every fan in the country.

As the support at the Ashes shows, if they put it on, at any cost, people will turn up. They are counting on that same blind loyalty for the Hundred next year. I hope the fans turn their back on it. Only when they do, will the ECB get the bloody message. Stop pretending that test cricket is the prime format, when you neglect it. Don’t run premature victory laps. Losing the Ashes to our greatest foe, who played well enough, but hardly the greatest team to visit these shores, is not necessarily the worst thing, but it hurts. It makes the next series even more important. It’s hard to tell how England get good enough, quickly enough, to compete down under in a couple of years time, but the time should be spent wisely.

Instead we’ll have all manner of distractions. That’s where we are.

I’m not angry. I’m disappointed. What’s the point of losing your rag with this team, this organisation, and hell, the media and the know-it-all social media paragons? It’s not my place any more to be Mr Angry. What’s the point?

Congratulations Australia and Steve Smith. This has been the Fag End Ashes, an adjunct to the main event. We are World Champions. Enjoy the rest of the summer. Priorities and all that.

England v Australia – 4th Test Day 4 – Wows Are Few, Frustration More Common

LordCanisLupus51 Comments

 

What can I say?

I’m not surprised, let’s be honest. I’ve said during the summer that this is a mad scientist’s experiment of a cricket team, and while a freak compound came together for a day and a bit at Leeds, as I said many times in the past few years, pretty little half centuries, or grinding 70s aren’t going to win test matches. Double hundreds on good surfaces that decline do. So while we raised Steve Smith’s pedestal yet further, we see Joe Root pale in comparison. Stuart Broad and Ben Stokes must be absolutely livid at what they are seeing. Both are near, or close to, the top of their game, but we persisted with this twisted, mangled wreck of a batting line-up and the rewards are shown for all to see this evening.

Tomorrow Australia will wrap up the Ashes for another couple of years, and given we travel about as well as English wine, probably another four before we get a crack again at our old foe on home soil. That would be another crack at test cricket, because Australia are over here next year for some hit, giggle and white ball contest again. It’s what we want. An hors d’oeuvre for the Hundred.

Back to the start of the day, and England started on 200 for 5. Bairstow got cleaned up pretty early on, and it’s hard to argue with the reaction of one of this parish…

https://twitter.com/SeanBcricket/status/1170293046891692032

Stokes couldn’t repeat the miracle of Headingley, nicking off to slip, and Archer did not detain us for too long with another low score. Dobell is getting a little impatient, thinking Jofra should bat at number 11. Stuart Broad did his best, which is far from what his best used to be, but he’s bloody trying, and stuck with Jos almost up to the follow on mark, before some blows got England past the follow-on, but not much more. Jos has not yet made 100 runs in 7 digs for England in this series and is played as a specialist batsman. Not much use when he’s coming in at number 8, due to the nightwatchman, but hey, I’m not a Dean of Sports History, so what the hell do I know?

Broad and Archer bowled superbly to start with, removing Warner for a duck, Harris soon after, and then Marnus for fewer than 50 for the first time this series. Head didn’t last too long. But despite looking more vulnerable than nearly any time in this series, Smith wasn’t out, and he accelerated the pace of the innings in an 82 that allowed Australia to declare and set England 383 to win. Or more reasonably a full day and a half an hour to bat out time and take the series to the Oval.

BOOM! Cummins induces a poor legside shot attempt from Rory Burns and the ball skewed off the leading edge to mid-off. Third ball, 0 for 1

CRASH! Root gets a decent one first up and has his off stump pegged back by Cummins. His second first ball duck of the series. Root’s average drops to barely above 48. After a dodgy spell captaining after tea, where he clearly needed to balance bowling workloads, but allowed Smith to get free, is his captaincy under pressure? It should be.

Jason Roy (and I wonder what would have happened and what the comment would have been if he’d had fallen to Cummins ball to Root) came in at 4, in the first over. He’s faced his first ball later in the innings opening the batting! He and Denly saw out the day and the game finished the day with England 18 for 2.

We won’t bat out tomorrow. I’d be surprised if England get to tea, and not be surprised if they are done by lunch. They took the momentum from Leeds, bowled and fielded poorly, lost it to the human spirit sapper Smith, and found themselves in their area of weakness, chasing a big score. England can’t make these without miracles aligning, and so they proved, scraping over 300, which is a rarity these days, so I suppose it was a success of sorts.

England’s test cricket is unfathomable. It can align and beat India 4-1, it can unravel, and but for miracles and mis-steps, it should really be 3-0 tomorrow. All through it I’ve watched as much as I can, taped as much as I can, reviewed as much as I can, but the spirit isn’t there. This is ADHD test cricket and I’m not a fan. Paul Hayward, a journo who should really know better, was eulogising how this series has transcended sport, but to me it is a crap series, with one man dominating, and when he didn’t play, we got an extraordinary finish. One great theatrical contest. The third test was Highlander, the rest has been Highlander II. I’ve just not been into it at all. I wasn’t that keen to write tonight’s opus.

So, onto tomorrow. The Inevitable End, as Royksopp named their final album. I hope we put up a fight, but the two in at the moment have been almost walking wickets, and then we go to the expansive all rounders and their gates and swishes. We’ve got a slightly longer tail as well. If they survive….. oh stuff it. Don’t get your hopes up.

Ashes to Ashes. Dust to Dust. If the hope is there, well I admire your trust.

And we were 13 overs short. Who gives a shit that the paying public, probably shelling out £100 for a ticket, get 15% of their play taken away because the players don’t give a stuff about getting a wiggle on. We can go on about this, but no-one gives a shit in authority. No-one.

Comments below on the final farce.

Dmitri

England vs Australia: 4th Test, Day Three: Snakes and Ladders

thelegglance45 Comments

It was all going so well.  Surprisingly well, albeit if two batsmen in the top order were going to get set, settled and score runs, Burns and Root were by far the most likely.

Overton was an early loss, but while having him hang around would have been a bonus, he’d done his job last night.  The bulk of the day was all about the partnership of 141 which, if not comfortable, certainly looked in relative control.  It wasn’t easy, Cummins in particular bowled with pace, aggression and plenty of skill, while having very little luck.  But the two batsmen took England to the point where wild fantasies dreamed of a total decent enough to take England to some kind of position of safety.  Should have known better.

If nothing else, it demonstrated for the second innings in a row a greater level of batting responsibility from the England batsmen since the shambles of Headingley first time around.  To that extent, credit is due to them, for if 200-5 at the early close forced by bad light is some way of being a triumph -it did at least offer a relatively responsible example of batting at Test match pace, against challenging bowling.  It is to praise without context, for the times when England might be expected to respond to a big total by posting one of their own are receding rapidly into the past.

The late flurry of wickets, with both set batsmen departing and Roy joining them back in the pavilion wrecked a lot of the hard work that had been done, and with just 6 overs to go until the new ball, the possibility of a full blown collapse in the morning is distinct, but England’s first target of avoiding the follow on, which will take some time out of the game at least, is less than 100 away, and failing to get at least that far would represent a failure and a let down of the batting work done today.

Having been utterly dire yesterday, the problem England have is that they can’t afford a bad half hour for the rest of the Test, and that’s exactly what they suffered late after tea.  No one threw their wicket away, Burns and Root were both got out by excellent bowling, while Jason Roy had looked vastly more at home in the middle order than opening, before being undone by his technical looseness against a high quality Test match bowler. Perhaps if he’d been asked to bat in the middle order from the beginning, he’d have had a chance of getting into Test cricket, but his defence looks far too loose to allow him to stay in long enough to capitalise on his undoubted stroke making skill.  Even so, that he might never have been good enough to hold down a place is one thing, it is another altogether to select him as an opener which undermined fatally any chance he might have ever had.  There’s no disgrace in getting out to the ball that did for him, but how he got out, utterly beaten with stumps splayed everywhere wasn’t a good look.

Root will be picked up again for failing to convert a fifty into a hundred, but both he and Burns probably deserve credit for how they batted today more than criticism for not going on.  Losing them together was a huge blow for England’s chances of an escape, but the pressure had been increasing for some time, with Hazlewood, Cummins and Lyon turning the screw ever tighter.  For once, England’s predicament is less about the batsmen, though the flaws inherent in the order make handling facing a big total more daunting than it was and than it should be.

It makes tomorrow a designated Big Day for the destination of the Ashes – England are going to have to bat out of their skins to get remotely close to Australia’s total, and bat long enough to take sufficient time out of the game to put pressure on Australia to try to force the win.  But it’s hard to see England having to bat less than a day second time around at minimum in order to get a draw, and by the time day five rolls around, on a surface that’s taking ever increasing amounts of spin.  Rain and bad light might yet intervene, and provide England with a salvation that they will scarcely deserve, for although they are battling hard, and doing about as much as might be expected of them with the bat, they are looking a doomed team.  The performance of Smith has been the difference between the sides, and England are wilting in the face of the repeated pummeling.  Bairstow and Stokes are still at the crease, and given the latter’s preposterous predilection for pulling off the impossible, all hope is not lost, but it’s not just uphill from here, it’s getting steeper by the minute.

Late on today came the announcement of the sad death of Abdul Qadir, swiftly followed in the rugby world by that of Chester Williams.  Two sportsmen who were iconic in different ways, the latter an icon of the rainbow nation that won the 1995 Rugby World Cup, the former for carrying the banner of leg spin bowling at a time in the 1980s when it appeared virtually extinct, especially in England.  Shane Warne a decade later would gain the plaudits for being truly extraordinary, but for a certain age group, Abdul Qadir was leg spin bowling – a man who would demonstrate something that was sufficiently rare and exotic as to send a thrill through the observer in an age where pace bowling dominated.   His record is a fine one, but his impact around the cricketing world can scarcely be underestimated.

 

England vs Australia, 4th Test, Day 2

dannycricket58 Comments

There are days where the four writers here fight each other in order to get the chance to write the post at the end of play, and there are days when none of us want to write it. Today was very much from the second group.

The game started with people (particularly in the England team and the English media) suggesting that the Australian players would have been shaken and mentally scarred from Stokes’ heroics at Headingley. After two days, that would not appear to be the case. On the other hand, England’s bowlers and fielders looked tired. Perhaps they had spent the previous week on the lash, celebrating their unlikely win. Or perhaps the cold and wet Manchester weather had sapped any enthusiasm and energy they had for the game. Whatever the reason for England’s performance, it was an absolutely dire day for the home team.

The story was a familiar one. Steve Smith was in, and he stayed in until he put the game beyond England’s reach. England’s bowlers seemed powerless to stop him, bar a delivery from Jack Leach which Smith hit to slip. Unfortunately for England, Leach had overstepped the bowling crease and so the wicket was rescinded by the third umpire. Mitchell Starc and Tim Paine played supporting roles to Smith, each getting a fifty. Australia ended up posting a first innings total of 497/8d, leaving England requiring 297 runs just to avoid the possible follow-on.

Australia’s declaration left England with a ‘tricky 10 overs’ to face at the end of the day. As is traditional for tricky periods at the end of the day, no barrage of wickets fell. Instead, Australia were only able to pry Denly out with a sharp catch at short leg. On paper, Denly’s dismissal for 4 off 24 balls seems like an absolute failure. And, to be clear, it is. Any number of county openers must be looking at the performance of this England team’s top order and wondering if they have wronged any particular deity to be passed over so unfairly. But, compared to Roy’s performance in recent games, it was a defensive tour de force. Of Jason Roy’s 7 Test ininngs as opener, only one lasted more than 24 deliveries (His 28 (58) at Edgbaston). Particularly for an opener, who typically has a responsibility to get through the new ball more often than not, that is a shocking record. Let’s just hope that his Test batting improves when he comes in at five tomorrow.

But, and here’s the problem for me as a writer, what can you write about this game from an England perspective? There were no great performances in a losing cause which deserve highlighting, nor was there anyone who stood out as being significantly worse than their teammates. It was all just uniformly, predictably, mind-numbingly poor from all eleven players. The bowling, the fielding, and (for the 10 overs at the end of the day) the batting were diabolically bad.

It’s not like the ECB are going to sack the coach with just a few weeks left on his contract. Nor is any selector, even Ed Smith – Maverick Genius, going to drop all eleven players from a Test team. I’m genuinely stumped. Barring the rain making a significant contribution to proceedings (and given England have chosen to play in Manchester in September, it’s not an impossible scenario), I can’t see how England can avoid losing this game and conceding the Ashes.

And, for those of you keeping count at home, I think there were 4 overs unbowled today. Presumably, like every other day in this series so far, no punishments will be forthcoming.

Comments on the game or anything else below.

England vs. Australia, 4th Test, Day 2 open thread

Sir Ronald33 Comments

Well unfortunately none of us we were able to watch the first day’s play yesterday, hence the lack of a post, in the hope that maybe one of us had seen the highlights. Alas, to say it wasn’t a great day of cricket is an understatement. The weather conditions meant that the teams were on, then off more than an opinion from Michael Vaughan.

England lost the toss and were made to bowl first on a pitch that seemed to give little assistance to the bowling team. They did though make early inroads with Broad first taking the wicket of David Warner, who has become his walking wicket during this series and then picking up Harris on reviews. After that, the pitch seemed to flatten out and not for the first time in this series Smith and Labuchagne made England’s bowlers toil in unhelpful conditions for a surprisingly tame England attack.

Craig Overton picked up Labuschagne towards the end of the day, after bowling pretty innocuously for the most part of the day. Steve Smith is still at the crease (of course he is) and if I had a pound for every time I’ve highlighted that England need to get him out early to restrict the Australian total, then I’d probably be living in a castle somewhere in Umbria at the moment.

The weather doesn’t look great for today, cue the why are we playing the Ashes at Old Trafford in Manchester debate, but fingers crossed that we might get some more play today. Equally it would also be quite refreshing if Steve Smith could trip over his stumps in the first over of the day; unlikely sure, but probably as likely as a full day’s play.

Feel free to comment on the game below.

England vs Australia: 4th Test Preview

thelegglance25 Comments

Yesterday’s preview that wasn’t a preview rather removed anything that’s not a preview from this preview.  Or something.

Anyway, here we are, 1-1 in the series, a genuinely epic conclusion to the last Test match and everything to play for. England have replaced Woakes with Craig Overton, continuing the glorious English tradition of making a bowler pay the price for the failures of the batsmen to score enough runs.  Woakes was used sufficiently sparingly in the last couple of Tests to cause speculation about him having an injury.  That England insist he’s fit rather makes it worse – as it means Root didn’t bowl him through choice.  Overton is clearly intended to come in and be the workhorse, which is all very well as long as he keeps it tight and looks mildly threatening sufficiently to allow Broad and Archer to not be ground into the dirt.  Nice plan, let’s see if it happens.

The other change England are making is to swap the positions of Denly and Roy, a tacit admission that despite the insistence that being a white ball opening batsman is sufficient preparation and similarity of role for doing so in Test cricket, they’ve got it wrong.  Who could possibly have seen that coming?  Roy has plenty of talent, that much isn’t in doubt, but a refusal on the part of the selectors to accept the differences in the roles gave him little chance of succeeding.  Whether he has the technique to bat at four is equally in doubt, but England’s insistence on defining attacking cricket as being able to smack the ball around in a limited overs contest means that short of an open admission that the selection was entirely wrong, this was likely the only change they could make.  It looks a touch more stable at the top, albeit it now places Denly at a disadvantage, but his innings at Headingley did at least show he was more likely to last the first five overs than Roy.  Denly’s innings in Leeds was needed for his own sake, and while he likely isn’t quite good enough for Test level (few are) he is at least approaching his innings with a desire to occupy the crease, something in perilously short supply in the England order

Australia have responded to their bowlers failure to defend 359 by dropping a batsman, which would be rather more amusing were it not for being an obvious necessity in order to bring the returning Smith back into the batting order.  Khawaja is the unlucky one, and in his case it might be that he really is unlucky.  He’s not shone this series, but nor has he been a particular failure either – he’s certainly looked the best of the top three to date – Australia’s reluctance to drop Marcus Harris after one game being the primary reason for sitting him out of this one.  Marnus Labuschagne has taken his chance expertly enough, but there’s something a little strange about making Khawaja captain for the tour match and then dropping him for the Test.

Pattinson is rested for the fourth Test, presumably for Peter Siddle to return.  Australia are in the pleasant position of having sufficient stocks of fast bowlers that Mitchell Starc still hasn’t appeared in the series, and few of the journalists are suggesting he will in this one.  Maybe a surprise will happen.

Smith’s return does set up the prospect of he and Archer renewing hostilities, and there’s little doubt that England will look to target him with the short ball utilising Archer’s extra pace.  Smith would be less than human if he weren’t a little apprehensive about that, but the bigger danger for England is in over-doing a tactic and forgetting that a good ball is a good ball, whoever it is bowled at.  It will still be pure theatre when they face off against each other and he will be more than aware of what is coming.

As for the way the game will unfold, the return of Smith is undoubtedly a boost for Australia, but other than that not a huge amount has changed in terms of the weaknesses of both sides.  The top orders still look exceptionally brittle, the middle orders still get exposed too early, the bowling attacks still look to be on top.  But England are level in this series because of a completely outrageous performance from one player.  They have looked second best in the series for the majority of the time, and relying on Stokes to pull off the ridiculous doesn’t seem a strategy likely to yield consistent results.  Australia will certainly be wary of a player who can do that kind of thing, no matter what the match position, it’s just that it’s asking far too much for him to do it on more than an occasional basis.

Australia should be the favourites, both for this match and for the series, based on what we’ve seen so far.  But England can certainly play better than they have, even with a flawed batting line up.  They’ve had a lifeline, a hail Mary of a win – whether they can use that to raise their game collectively is a different matter.  But a finish as good as the last one, that would indeed be welcome.  Already, as is the wont of those who delight in the clickbait, some are suggesting this series could be as good as 2005.  To put it mildly, the last two Tests would have to be extraordinary for that to be the case, even discounting the standard of the two sides in this one compared to 14 years ago.  It’s silly, it’s always silly.  But it carries on, for that is the journalistic world in which we now live.  A decent game, that goes the distance, that’ll do here.

Comments, as ever, below.

There’s No Getting Over You – Not Really A Preview, But A Preview of the 4th Test

LordCanisLupus25 Comments

In the words of a song by Bob Moses, “let me tell you about a little situation, that’s been testing my patience”. I’ve had my patience and faith tested this past week or so. Unlike the song, it isn’t about being led astray by a taken woman, but it is how, after five and a half years of cricket blogging, when the day came that could be the culmination of all my work, the crescendo to end the varied, rambling musical piece that this blog, or my contribution to it, has been, I was absent. And I mean totally absent. I played no part, was not engaged, was adrift. In this multimedia, connected world, I was cut off. You lot had a life experience, a sporting drama to match few others, and I got to experience it like a dream sequence in a bad soap opera. Imagining the pain, terror, hope, outrage, excitement, fear, wonder, and any other emotion you care to mention, that undoubtedly that final hour brought with Ben Stokes swinging from the hip. Indeed, what the lead up to it brought to you. Remember YOUR feelings. Remember how YOU watched or listened to it. Then imagine not being able to. At all.

Imagine that. Imagine being a devoted cricket fan and missing it all, every effing ball of the final day. I didn’t get to experience sport in its most visceral form. I didn’t get to scream at the sixes, go ape at the failed run out, laugh hysterically at the LBW review because they’d blown it the over before. I didn’t get to holler that massive YES when Stokes got the winning boundary and let out his own scream. I wasn’t a participant. I wasn’t even a watcher. I was cut off, flying over the northeastern United States, with no access. Like a non-Sky subscriber who never knew what cricket was, is, will be. I missed it ALL.

Yet Chris asked me write the preview to the next test! He’s a cruel one.

A brief aside as to why I didn’t see it, as if any of you give the combination of a single you know what about that. On Saturday I was due to fly to New York with work. Yeah, yeah, yeah, first world problems. I was on the plane, enjoying my drink, when the stewardess snatched it off my tray. “Oi!, I hadn’t finished that” I exclaimed, I got the drink back, necked it, and passed it back to the stewardess. Before I knew it, there were announcements, acrid smoke in the back galley, dumping fuel, circling and emergency landing at Shannon. There were examinations of aircraft, milling around in a mostly closed airport, a flight back to Gatwick, various Keystone Coppery at 2am, transfer to Heathrow at 3am, a 1 and a half hour stay in a hotel, and back on the 9:35 flight the following morning. When I landed at JFK at 5:15pm UK time, I switched on the phone and saw the result. I exclaimed a little “yes” and then concentrated on cultivating the migraine from lack of sleep and flight terror into a 4D yodel in the taxi to the hotel. I wasn’t exactly in great shape. At least that aeroplane lunch had been actively recycled.

But hey, this is a preview of the next test, right? Well how can I comment on trends and shit when I missed the best thing in English test cricket for quite a while – probably 2005. I get to miss out on the “greatest ever” debates I find absolutely immensely tedious at the best of times. I get to not share on the “how great was this….” that all of you who got to watch it live shared. I feel like I did when Charlton signed Allan Simonsen and I got a ticket to one of his first games, only to get in to the Valley and be told he would be replaced by Dave Mehmet. Now I liked Dave (as he was a Deptford Park alum) but it’s not European Footballer of the Year material. Disappointment haunted all my dreams.

Watching the whole thing on Friday was watching a great mystery thriller and knowing the ending. Who Shot JR after the great reveal a few months later? No radio. No TV. No internet. Nothing. Just a migraine and misery. The blogging equivalent of spilling your recycled lunch over the hotel lobby floor – a trick that endeared me to the reception staff on 47th Street. My travelling companion was a German fellow, who kept banging on about tennis. Nice guy, but no-one English to talk the whole damn show through with.

What I did see of the 3rd test was not pretty. I left home for the ill-fated leave the oven on flight at 1pm, and we had just bowled out Australia to leave us wanting the record total. Ouch, that hurts. I missed a record as well. Roy and Burns had just seen off a couple of overs before lunch, before both wickets were lost by the time I had boarded the Piccadilly Line. I sat in Heathrow Airport as Denly and Root ground out the partnership, with Denly sounding all at sea but perfecting the art, until 50, of not getting out. I settled in to my aircraft seat, not realising food would be elusive for another 15 hours, with England whatever it was for 3. Needing 200 more. I hate British Airways.

This test now becomes very important. Instead of the Ashes being done and dusted, we have more mentions of Momentum than post-2017 Labour General Election readouts. Instead of England Brexiting the Ashes, very much on a no-deal, no-good basis, we are poncing about, hoping to remain. And that’s all the politics we are allowing here. They’re more tiresome than the ECB. Spend a week in Trump World, and you might even believe Tom Harrison is a paragon of truth and virtue.

So after all that, and what threads I have are cast into a Dorian-like maelstrom, I conclude that after the drama wot i did not see, the next test can be looked at two ways:

One – England are carrying such momentum that Australia are broken by being so near and yet so far from retaining the Ashes on English since, topically (from my viewpoint) and sadly, there were two towers in lower Manhattan and not the very photogenic one that has replaced it. That Australia’s errors of judgement and execution have so destroyed them, that there remains a hulking carcass, broken and dismayed, flayed of emotion and drive, casting themselves to the inevitability of the upcoming few weeks. England have crushed their spirit, and all that remains is good weather and an inevitable triumph over an emotionally vanquished rag tag and bobtail outfit; or

Two – It takes a miracle for England to win. And miracles may happen twice in a season on big occasions, but three times, or even four, is asking too much. Isn’t it?

This England team, and it is unchanged save from taking the hammock from around the swimming pool, and the deck chair from underneath the mock palm tree (I’ll let you decide which one is Roy, which one is Denly), unless someone makes a change (Curran for Woakes? I really don’t see it, but by the time this goes up, the England brains trust will do something), got bowled out for 67 10 days ago. And not for the first time this year has it been bowled out for a dismally low total in double figures. It’s a habit not usually coinciding with victorious outcomes, even though England have somehow managed to turn the last two sows ears into silk purses. I wouldn’t create a long-term pathway to success.

Jofra Archer may have had a rest, but he’ll be over-bowled, Stuart Broad is no spring chicken and while his bowling may seem to emanate from the fountain of eternal youth, his body is doing well to hold together. Old Trafford can benefit pace and spin, and Leach may well need to come to the party. It’s all very well being the Graham Dilley to Ian Botham role, but Dilley didn’t make the next test match, and Leach needs a defining bowling performance to cement his place. The batting may well benefit from a Root stay at the crease at Leeds, but it needs Jos Buttler to deliver on his promise, and not promise to deliver. England are a deeply flawed team, and Ben Stokes won’t be there every time.

Australia may fiddle with their bowling – I would presume James the Tats Pattinson is most vulnerable to recalling Siddle or Mitchell Starc – and Steve Smith will return to the number four slot, with all sorts of batting decisions spinning off from that, and they will know that they’ve had the whip hand for 75% of the series so far. They know that they are the better side, I think even England might know that, but that doesn’t always translate to success. I have a feeling that they will be on their game here, and England may need to bowl them out cheaply on Day One to get on top. I can’t see England’s batting setting an imposing total. Let’s see.

I’ll be found in my chair, rocking back gently, muttering to myself about the day I missed. How I would have kept up with it in NYC, I won’t know, but I would have. I think the phone bill might have been higher. It may be karmic justice that for all the anger and opprobrium I have spent on the England cricket team meant when there was something to watch to get me out of my seat, I was stuck in Row 13A. The check-in guy even asked me if I was superstitious. I’ll have that rancour of the man who bought all the seats for the Ashes 2005 test at the Oval and being passed over for the Day 5 ticket that remained. We’re still friends.

This isn’t a preview. Who gives a stuff about team news and that nonsense anyway? You want pain and anger, and I have it. You want me to rant at all those who ran to the social media and TV outlets proclaiming “greatest ever”, when arguably there was a better knock earlier this year by Kusal Perera and half the numpties who ran for the superlatives wouldn’t have know who he even played for. It’s the Ashes and it’s just better, so there. A team bowled out for 67 can’t hide the lack of quality.

The Ashes exists in this febrile environment. The KSL finished yesterday and will be replaced by a competition the women don’t want, and yet those who hail the brave new Hundred world were extolling test cricket’s virtues like converted TV evangelists. Don’t be in a rush to donate them your life’s savings. There were tedious moans about DRS, but the debate begins and ends with “don’t waste your reviews on total utter f***wittery”, which, marvellously, was effectively how the great Ricky Ponting summed it up. We had Nick Compton talk us through what’s wrong with the game, how he would address it, and even some spice on his playing days, and it was good to see the media react to it as if we never exist. We know you read us chaps.

I’m in a fury, and it’s not my fault. To English cricket, the media, the ECB and those enabling sycophants who deride people like me as pensioners and stick in the muds, know that missing last Sunday was painful. Really painful. A knife to the shoulder blade, kick in the nuts painful. I turn to Bob Moses (it’s a band not a person) for closure:

I’m trying to tell your intention
when you lie, you’re tearing me up
If you don’t want my affection
you won’t mind, you’re tearing me up

Cricket. Test cricket. F*** you. I loved you, and you did that to me. Let my critics laugh away.

Play starts on Wednesday. No Ashes Panel. Sorry. Let’s try after this one.

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